Understanding Early Intervention Signals in Apricot

Early Intervention Signals Overview

Early Intervention Signals is an Apricot Que skill that proactively surfaces changes in participant data, so your team stops digging through records and starts getting ahead of them. Instead of building reports to spot who needs attention, Signals does that work automatically, every night.

Administrators configure Signals by deciding what Que should be watching for. Early Intervention Signals then runs nightly, checks for changes, and delivers results directly to the doc folder, plus sends alerts to the right people. Early Intervention Signals is part of the Que Intelligence package and is available in Open Beta starting October 15, 2026.

Signals look for two kinds of factors. Risk factors appear in an orange card when criteria are met, for example, no new service notes in 30 days. Protective factors appear in a green card for positive indicators, for example, consistent attendance at workshops.

To get started, once Bonterra has enabled the feature for your site, go to Workflow Station, then Rules & Alerts, then Signals. You’ll see a new Signals tab next to Rules. From there, you create a signal, add risk and protective factors, set up notifications, test your output, and activate it for your team.

Nothing is visible to standard users until you turn the master toggle on for a signal, so you have full admin-only time to build, test, and refine. After you activate a signal, changes appear in the doc folder the next morning. Review the articles below to build your first signal.

What can Early Intervention Signals do for you?

Keisha is the Apricot Administrator at a youth development program. Her case managers each carry a large caseload, and they only notice that a participant has gone quiet when someone builds a report. She creates a signal anchored to her Participant Profile form, adds a risk factor for no new service notes in the past 30 days, and a protective factor for weekly workshop attendance.

She tests it with a participant she knows well, adjusts one sentence in her criteria, and turns the signal on after giving her team a heads up. The next morning, case managers find orange and green cards in their doc folders, and a daily email lists everyone with changes. They spend their time reaching out instead of searching.

Key Concepts

Before You Begin

Have these things in mind before you configure your first signal:

• Which Tier 1 form(s) should this signal watch? For example, Participant Profile.

• What Tier 2 forms live under that Tier 1? For example, Case Notes, Service Intake, and Goals.

• What fields on those Tier 2 forms indicate risk or progress?

• Who should receive notifications when the signal fires?

• Do you have a test participant (a known profile) to validate your output before going live?

Safe to explore: Nothing is visible to standard users until you turn on the master toggle for a signal. You have full admin-only time to build, test, and refine.

Feature Availability

• Early Intervention Signals is part of the Que Intelligence package. It isn’t available on the Free plan, and its toggle appears grayed out in Que Manager.

• It’s in Open Beta starting October 15, 2026. 

• During beta, each site can have up to 3 signals, and each signal can have up to 5 risk factors and 5 protective factors.

• Configuration is admin-only. Output is visible to any user with access to the doc folder once the signal is activated.

• Signals only reads your data. It never edits forms or records.

What do you need help with?

What is Early Intervention Signals in Apricot? | How do I set up an Early Intervention Signal in Apricot? | What is the difference between a risk factor and a protective factor? | How often does an Early Intervention Signal run? | Do I need the Que Intelligence Package to use Early Intervention Signals?